


NULL FORCE: BATTLE IN THE HALLS OF DARKNESS - A Star Wars Story

by Kummer_Wolfe



Category: Dune - All Media Types, Star Wars - All Media Types, Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dune Setting, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Alternate Universe - Vorkosigan Saga Setting, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:27:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26201887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kummer_Wolfe/pseuds/Kummer_Wolfe
Summary: A mysterious explosion in a remote lab hidden away in the depths of the Tapani Sector starts an investigation into the source that turns into a harrowing rescue in a race against time. Ruk “Ruckus” V’dora and Pala’teska are troopers turned scientists working for an organization known only as Null Force.Null Force, a covert branch of the Beskar Aran mercenary guild investigates discoveries - both historical and modern - on behalf of the Tapani Imperium of the new Galactic Alliance to protect worlds of the greater galaxy.Ruk and Pala must travel with the search and rescue team to the source of the explosion. What they find will be a challenge for the pair and for the fledgling organization!
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

_Five years after the start of the Clone Wars, the 257th detachment of the Grand Army of the Republic were sent to the worst fighting in the Outer Rim. Some of the Clones had uncovered information involving Chancellor Palpetine and the real motive for the war. Mysteriously, the detachment’s transport vanished._

_Now, almost thirty years later, they were revived from cryosleep on a mysterious backwater world by an unorthodox Jedi padawan. The war, their Republic was gone, and the galaxy had changed. The time they understood was gone._

_To survive, they formed their own mercenary guild, the Beskar Aran, which among their duties is to guard the Tapani Emperor. Unknown to the public, the Beskar Aran also works to investigate discoveries - both historical and technological - that could be used to harm the Tapani Imperium, if not the worlds of the greater galaxy. The Beskar Aran does this work through the use of a secret special operations organization called ‘Null Force’._

***

**Zetauri system in Shindra’s Veil nebula, Tapani Sector**

**Datunda, Nelona 14th, 12731**

Work was already underway by 0800 at the Protian Enterprises’ Advanced Physics Research Lab on the unforgiving, rocky world of Kaonov in the Zetauri system. It was the final test phase for Protian Enterprises’ new hyperdrive design before mass production could start. Systems powered on in the testing chamber by 0805, and reading were well within parameters.

At 0810, the hyperdrive detonated with the force of a proton torpedo, drowning the installation in cronau radiation.

Search and rescue teams were dispatched twenty hours later once the Bureau of Ships and Services received the automated distress call.

Ruk V’dora, in a jumpsuit and rebreather, stood on a small rise of craggy, blue-gray soil that overlooked the ancient remains of a crater lined with a thick rust-orange dirt that glimmered in the dim light from the system’s primary star.

Twenty meters away in the center of that crater stood two one story, industrial gray buildings filthy with stress cracks running through the plascrete walls. A white-gray, gossamer fog enveloped the second larger building, like a blanket, blurring it to normal vision.

He eyed twin alkali dust devils to his right, then adjusted his rebreather again. It was in place. Satisfied he wasn’t about to suck down any of the ample Kaonov dust, the clone trooper re-checked the readings on his sensor gauntlet. The results were the same. Based on his understanding of physics, specifically hyperdrive physics, this made no sense. But the sensor scans said otherwise.

At least half the lab building, the part that housed the hyperdrive prototype, had attempted the transition to hyperspace. The other half had remained untouched. However, the attempt failed, leaving a mess of cronau energy and muonic particles scattered everywhere. This accounted for the strange white mist moving around the building in a slow orbit. It reminded Ruk of water spiraling down a drain.

The core problem was that buildings just didn’t transition to hyperspace. They were attached to planets or other celestial bodies that generated too much gravimetric influence to make that happen.

“But this one tried,” he muttered. “Nearly made it, too.”

Ruk shook his head.

“Maybe I’ve got the calibration off.”

The gray-trimmed, white gauntlet that contained the Tritonic Muon Sensor had a suite of configurations. Sensor gauntlets, such as this one, were designed for simplicity. Ruk wiped aside a thin coat of orange dust, tapped the console and brought up the one for calibration. A chime sounded as the device finished the reset.

Ruk extended his right hand toward the broken physics lab and tapped ‘scan’. The TMS replied with a chirp.

Thirty seconds later, the device chirped again.

“ _Osik!_ ”

The new readings were the same as before.

Ruk almost pulled off the glove to hurl it at the ground. In fact, he wanted to. Not that it would change the readings or what they meant. It just might ease his frustration at the universe and the improbable situation dropped in front of him. Instead, he adjusted his rebreather then rubbed the bridge of his nose.

The comlink in his ear chirped, startling him.

“Dr. V’dora, I got your message and I’m headed your way. What’s wrong?”

Pala’teska’s soft Twi'lek accent was a welcome relief from his own irritated thoughts.

Ruk glanced around but couldn’t locate her. Then he saw the ‘send’ indicator lit up on the sensor gauntlet.

“Sorry,” Ruk sighed. “It’s nothing. I must have hit the emergency signal by accident when I was retaking the muonic and cronau signature scans.”

“Understood. I’ve an ETA of one minute to your location.”

“Affirmative.”

The landspeeder came into view over the crater’s ridgeline right on schedule after Ruk closed the communication.

Gray trim, dingy chrome with blue seats and lacking any side doors, it was an older model stripped down for speed and durability. The engine compartment in the rear had the most protection from the elements. The passenger area barely had a windscreen.

Pala’teska bounced the vehicle over the small hill and raced his way. Goggles in place, twin lekku trailing out behind her head, the emerald-green Twi’lek looked more like a swoop racer than a former Rebel Alliance soldier turned scientist.

She stopped the landspeeder half a meter from Ruk’s location. With a smirk, she straightened her vest, then brushed imaginary dust from a rust-red shirt sleeve.

“And arrived in record time. So, what’s the sit-rep?”

Ruk shook his head and chuckled despite still feeling exasperated.

“I took the readings three times to be sure. The prototype tried to make the hyperspace jump despite all the fail safes that Protian Enterprises say were in place.”

“Even though it was planetside?”

Ruk gestured toward the white mist, glaring at it and the building.

“Yes. That’s where the white mist came from. Energy bleed off from the failed hyperspace transition. Science, as I understand it, says it shouldn’t happen. Can’t happen. A body at an event horizon of a transition between realspace and hyperspace either transfers or it doesn’t. Stopping halfway? No.”

After a pause, he added.

“Well, maybe with a little rewiring I can think of two theoretical ways it _might_ could stop halfway but that’s wild theory and would cause a lot more damage. But by proven knowledge, this shouldn’t have happened.”

After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence passed, he glanced over at Pala’teska. She was leaning forward on the landspeeder controls, head tilted a fraction to the right, studying him.

“That isn’t the only thing bothering you, is it?”

Ruk grimaced and offered a mumbled grunt in reply. Expressing how he felt wasn’t entirely his strong suit. However, this was deeper and more personal than just being frustrated over an improbable puzzle sitting in front of him. Pala shook her head.

“Ruk. Give.”

A long sigh later, the clone trooper felt a knot unwind in his neck before he relented. She was his partner on this and he needed to be honest with her. His sour expression deepened.

“I shouldn’t be here.”

Pala blinked, sitting back in the driver’s seat.

“What?”

He grimaced.

“I shouldn’t be here. I’m no scientist. How am I any good to this mission at all? I’m _just_ a clone trooper. An ARC trooper lieutenant… well, a former one now, but still! I’m just a living weapon.” Ruk gazed up at the stars beyond the thin atmosphere.

“Stop that.”

Pala’s reply wasn’t harsh, but the words held an iron that Ruk couldn’t ignore. The clone met the Twi'lek’s hard look. He caught himself before he fidgeted the toe of a boot in the gray dust-soil he was standing in. She shook her head when he replied, cutting him off.

“You’ve been listening to that kriffing nerf herder, Halron Cote, again. Don’t pay _any_ attention to him. He’s the worst egocentric speciesist I’ve ever stumbled over.”

She shook a finger at him.

“You’re so much more than ‘just a clone’. In fact, I don’t believe there is such a thing as ‘just a clone’. Look, I know clone history, and yes, the Kaminoans created you and your clone brothers to be ‘slave soldiers’. That’s how you were born, it’s not who you _are_.”

“But…”

Pala shook her head, slicing the thin air with a hand.

“No. The Kaminoans didn’t make you study astrophysics. They also didn’t make you invent that amazing theory of ground-based hyperspace transition. Both of which are the very thing that got Null Force to send you here with me to deal with this problem. You’re as much a scientist as I am. It’s just that I’m the better driver.”

The wink after her last comment made Ruk chuckle despite his mood.

“What did Halron say?” she asked.

“The same nonsense about clone troopers compared to their progenitors. Explaining my ‘culture’ back to me and anyone listening. In this case, his topic was on clones trying to follow the Mandalorian way and build tribes for themselves. You know the one. Where he goes on about clones being ‘organic droids’ and droids don’t have a culture because they’re tools.”

Pala slammed a fist on the landspeeder controls.

“I would love to shove that man’s nose out the back of his head. But… that won’t help anyone figure out what happened here to Protian’s lab and their employees. It’ll just start a lot of noise that delays solving the real problem.”

She took four slow breaths, then patted the landspeeder as if getting her bearings.

“Ok. So. Just based on what everyone’s found so far, it looks like the fail-safes either weren’t in place or were shut off. Protian says otherwise.”

Ruk returned to staring at the building.

“Once a team gets inside, we’ll be able to figure that out provided the lab’s computer core is intact. Scans say it is since it's under the building.”

“Exactly. So why lie about it?”

He folded his arms over his chest and shrugged.

“They’ll already have lost some standing with the rest of the Corporate Sector Authority over this. So, to save face?”

Pala shook her head.

“That seems very weak. Who would really believe that?”

He sighed, watching a cloud escape the rebreather’s filter. It hovered near his right side before being carried away on the alkalai-heavy breeze. Thoughts, speculation, and theories drifted along as well until one idea solidified into view.

“That’s true. Setting that aside, a likely cause could be sabotage.”

“What?”

The tone in Pala’s voice caught his attention. Ruk turned around. Pala was sitting up straight in the landspeeder, alarmed.

“Do you have an idea who?” she asked. “Wait, no. There’s no way we could know who yet, we’re not even inside to check for clues. Let’s back up. What makes you think sabotage?”

He shrugged at his partner.

“I was sent out to sabotage droid factories and other research stations during the Clone Wars before my brothers and I were put in suspended animation. Think about it. How many research labs did you have to take down as a Rebel drop trooper during the wars? How many times was the public response touting fail-safes were in place, but one of them was faulty because of a low-budget contractor or some other face-saving reason?”

Ruk nodded toward the ruined lab.

“Sure, it could just be some disgruntled employee that let their revenge against the company get out of hand. However, sabotage by a competitor? That’s possible. What if another company wants to get their hyperspace drive out before Protian? Or perhaps weaken Protian Enterprises to prime it for a hostile takeover. Osik. Isn’t that just another day in the life for businesses from Corporate Sector Authority?”

Pala nodded.

“It is. Ok, the sabotage theory makes sense. But it's all theory. We’ve no evidence.”

“Not until we get in there,” Ruk added.

She leaned back in the seat and stared into the air in front of her.

“I’ve another angle of attack.”

Pala waved a hand at the building.

“What if Protian Enterprises was trying to prove your astrophysics idea?”

Ruk felt a shard of ice stab into his core.

“My… theory? About ground-based hyperspace transition? How would they even know about it?”

Pala shrugged.

“Really? How could they not? It thrilled Lord Razak when you, the first clone from his old 257th unit, was awarded a doctoral degree in astrophysics based on that theory. It set the astrophysics community on fire. Just how many presentations did you wind up making again?”

“Too many,” he groused while rubbing his eyes. “All right. But that means this is my fault.”

The scowl from Pala was as hot as blaster fire.

“No. In every presentation you warned everyone, your theory was untested. Also, it wasn’t at all ready for use as it was far too dangerous. You outlined dozens of potential safety precautions. If Protian Enterprises was rushing your theory into reality just to be the first to bring it to market, it’s on them for not taking your warnings seriously.”

Ruk pulled his datapad out of the leg pocket on his jumpsuit and logged into the device. A few taps later, he gestured with it toward the ruined lab.

“Small comfort for what? Twenty of Protian Enterprises employees?”

“Fifteen,” Pala corrected him. “Five were on personal leave.”

Ruk nodded and tapped the device off with his thumb.

“Fifteen, then.”

Pala waved for Ruk to join her in the vehicle.

“We should get back to base camp. As for that,” Pala pointed at the research lab, “the best we can do for those lost fifteen is to find out what caused this, who caused it, then make it known.”

Just then their comlinks chimed in unison. Pala activated hers first.

“V’dora. Pala’teska. This is Mira Vorwan back at base camp. Have you got the cronau and muon scans?”

Ruk nodded, then tapped his comlink.

“This is Ruk. We’ve got the scans. I’ll transmit once we’re past the ridgeline between here and base camp, so the signal is clear.”

“Perfect,” Mira replied. “Also, get back here asap. We need you both here immediately. There’s been a development. We need to get into that lab in the next hour, cronau radiation or no.”

Ruk and Pala swapped a concerned look. Pala keyed her comlink.

“Mira, what changed? What’s the situation?”

“We just got a signal. There’s someone still alive in the lab.”


	2. Chapter 2

The trip back to base camp was a blur. Blue-gray desert sand and orange alkali dust-devils flashed by outside the landspeeder. Pala drove, hugging the hills and crater edges with the skill of an expert pod-racer. The landspeeder held up to her piloting.

Her nerve-chewing pace didn’t bother Ruk, he’d ridden with worse. Clone pilots, in his opinion, had a death wish when operating anything from landspeeders to starfighters. Pala at least had a sense of self-preservation. Also, the harsh, desolate view of the desert landscape made it easier for him to think.

A survivor inside a broken down lab that was soaked in cronau radiation? It wasn’t impossible, just highly unlikely. Still, his Advanced Recon Clone armor was hardened against radiation. Pala’s armor was too, since hers was based on his. The rest of the team? Ruk frowned. They needed to find a way past that radiation to reach the survivor.

Hopefully, this wasn’t a ghost signal from a Protian Enterprise employee already long dead.

Ten minutes later, in the base camp’s conference room, he got his answers. Ruk, as did the rest of the team leads like Pala, studied the 3D projection of the Protian lab complex. It was a glowing blue picture hovering over a holotable.

“The signal’s genuine and the survivor is here.” Mira Vorwan tapped a section of a ghostly blueprint over the table’s surface. “It’s mid-building, right at the computer core for the prototype testing chamber. The survivor’s name is Rhia Oannes. Human. She’s one of Protian’s researchers.”

Eman Griqat, a Bothan and the team’s medic, stroked his goatee while studying the location Mira indicated. His long, furry snout seemed even longer as he tilted his head towards his chest. After a few seconds, he withdrew a datapad from the inner pocket of his saffron field vest, tapping out a quick calculation.

“It’s a safe enough spot,” he said, though his tone held a faint note of uncertainty. “Given the radiation dispersal pattern around the building, it’s even possible that the blast tore out and around that room.”

Mira scowled at the blueprint. Occasionally she reached out, slowly turning the hologram to view it from a different angle. Ruk realized she was reading the sensor scans on the materials around the computer core.

“Its got the most shielding. Also, a room like that in a small outpost has the most structural integrity.”

She put her hands on her hips, looking past the hologram at everyone in the room. The short woman’s dark eyes focused onto each person there like a target lock, expecting an answer. While she wore the gray coveralls of a mechanic, her bearing suited a Tapani military commander. Ruk wasn’t surprised.

The lady was a human from House Vorwan, a ‘sept’ or branch of House Vorpelagia. Ruk hadn’t met many from House Vorwan but the few he had all shared the same traits as their ancestor house of Vorpelagia. Quick-witted, with a durasteel-hard willpower, members of House Vorwan were a force to be reckoned with all on their own. Ruk was glad he was on her side.

“Well, then we use the hard suits,” Halron Cote replied with all the warmth of a bored professor explaining a topic to what he considered a dim student.

Mira folded her arms over her chest. Halron suddenly earned her full attention. It took the tall, thin human only a second before he fidgeted, realizing his mistake. He ran a hand through his wispy blonde hair.

“Look, that’s the proper process here. That’s why they’re even along.”

Mira didn’t blink.

“Using those hard suits is a bit complicated at the moment. We’re short a few.”

“What?” Halron exclaimed. “I requisitioned the correct amount based on potential computer models and the recommended procedures for a ground-based investigation into a radiation affected area.”

For Ruk this was like watching a game of Hutt ball. Only he was wondering if Halron was about to _be_ the ball. Mira didn’t roll her eyes, but her posture hadn’t relaxed yet. She cleared her throat.

“Computer models don’t account for mynocks chewing through parts of the hard suits to get at the transport’s power cables. Outside of Ruk and Pala’s armor, we’ve got maybe two functional hard suits.”

Halron Cote’s mouth shot open and his voice rose at least a half-octave.

“What? That’s intolerable!” Cote sputtered a moment, then gathered his thoughts. “All right. Well. The subsequent procedures indicate we use droids to navigate the area. So, in our case, droids or Ruk since he’s a clone.”

Shouts started at once, and it was hard to tell if Mira was holding back Pala from assaulting Halron or the other way around. It took the search and rescue’s shuttle flight crew to separate the team leaders. Ruk had heard Cote’s insulting comment but chose to ignore it. The mission parameters had changed, so for him ‘procedure’ was out the window. There was a life on the line. They needed to get that researcher to safety.

Eman stepped closer to Ruk.

“Halron may be one of the most brilliant minds this side of the Tapani Sector, but he’s still a gigantic bantha’s ass.”

Ruk waved a hand at the medic.

“I know. His comments set me off a little, but I’m learning to ignore him.”

The Bothan’s chuckle rumbled in his chest.

“Very ‘Jedi’ of you.”

Ruk snorted.

“I’ve worked with a couple. After a while, they rub off on you in a good way.”

“If you say so. Now, about this situation here. What are you thinking?” Eman asked.

Ruk pointed at digital representations of energy signatures splayed over the holographic building. Then he folded his arms over his chest. Energy readings and numbers from automated sensors scans of the lab changed on the hologram every few seconds.

“I missed this before. Seeing the up to the minute sensor scans like this helps. Watch the cronau radiation around the building.”

Eman leaned in closer to the hologram.

“Is that… _flowing_? Like water?”

Ruk nodded.

“It is. I’ve only got a guess but I think it’s reacting with the planet’s gravity, making it flow like a miniature interplanetary hyperspace lane.”

The doctor frowned.

“An IHL? Isn’t that the gravitational paths through a solar system that pilots tend to follow? I’ve heard some talk about it.”

“The very same,” Ruk replied. “But this is in miniature. Science discovery aside, I’m thinking we can work with this.”

Eman watched the representation of cronau radiation ebb and flow around the building. After a few seconds, he nodded.

“You think we can time it to get in, then out, based on when the field’s flow is at its weakest.”

Ruk grinned at the doctor.

“That and maybe alter its course. Back in the Clone Wars, we used a thing called a ‘grav-mine’. They would get tossed out to block hyperspace routes from being used or on planets to wreck installations. A single grav-mine should divert the energy flow long enough for a team to move in to get the survivor. I doubt the effect will last long, so the team heading in will need to work fast. The good thing is, we should have the parts here to cobble together a grav-mine. All we need is one for a lab that size.”

The Bothan’s frown deepened. He tugged on his goatee again.

“That word ‘mine’ usually implies ‘explode’.”

Ruk’s grin didn’t diminish.

“It does. But only if a detonator is wired in. Without that, it's an itty bitty grav generator… temporarily.”

Eman shook his head.

“Mad. So mad, and yet so clever. This is just… I don’t think I’ve got the right words for this.”

“Insanity is a good word,” Halron Cote snapped.

Ruk had been so intent on the hologram and his idea that he had missed the end of the argument behind him. Glancing back, he saw that the others were watching the hologram of the lab. From their expressions, he could tell they had heard his conversation with Eman. Halron also sported a new bruise on his right eye. Pala was massaging the knuckles of her right hand, and Mira looked all too pleased with herself. Ruk decided the less he knew, the better.

“Just insane,” Halron continued. “Grav mines are too risky. They aren’t used because of how unstable they are. It’s in the records on that technology. If a stray sensor scan hits one just right, it might go off anyway.”

Mira shrugged, folding her arms over her chest. “So we add a dampener. I’ve blueprints for grav field generators. A grav-mine would be nearly the same thing, only smaller and more portable.”

Pala’teska studied the hologram, purposefully putting her back to Halron, who flinched when she moved.

“If the cronau radiation is moving like a real IHL in a solar system, then I could plot an astrogation course to ‘predict’ the path that radiation is taking. That should help find the right spot to set up the mine.”

Halron’s eyes bulged.

“All of you,” he sputtered, ”are just insane! This isn’t the correct procedure for…”

The man’s objections cut off abruptly when Pala spun to face him. Halron turned pale, spine stiffened. To his credit, he didn’t back away.

Ruk sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose before turning to face Halron.

“Halron, look. There isn’t a procedure for this. Hyperspace transit on a planet surface? We’re way off the charts on this one. So we need to improvise. If Pala gets a course plotted, then a grav-mine is set up, a small team can get in and back out. But that team will have to be moving as the survivor won’t last long in there. Eman?”

The Bothan glanced over at the cronau radiation flow and studied the numbers.

“Assuming the survivor is still alive, an hour and a half. Not much longer than that.”

Ruk watched the group. The mix of personalities and discipline in the lot was unorthodox, but so was the plan. Somehow, he had a good feeling about it all.

“Then let’s get to work. ARC armor has the best protection built in against radiation exposure, so I’ll lead the team inside.”

“I’ll go with you,” Pala added. “My armor is based on yours.”

Ruk nodded his agreement before he spoke up again.

“That’s two. Anyone else, be at the vehicle bay in ten. I’ll need two more. A team of four should be the right size.” He put his hands on his hips. “So, the chrono’s ticking. Let’s get moving.”

While the meeting broke up, Eman watched Ruk for a long moment.

“So, how’s it feel being commander of the search and rescue effort?”

Ruk snorted.

“Uncomfortable. I was sent to provide help and support, not lead.”

The Bothan shrugged, slipping his hands into his vest pockets.

“We needed direction and motivation, you provided it. Looks like ‘support’ to me.” He paused, then said. “I’d like to volunteer for that team.”

Ruk raised his eyebrows.

“You? Shouldn’t you be out here prepping the medbay for this Rhia Oannes?”

The doctor shook his head.

“I should, but we don’t know how bad off she is in there. For all we know, she’s got broken limbs or plasma burns we don’t know about. That requires me to send my most skilled medic to get her stabilized before trying to move her. Which means me.” He shrugged. “The rest of my med team can have things ready.” Eman hesitated before adding, “Ruk, be honest. Will this work?”

Ruk turned to look at the holographic building floating over the display table.

“It has to.”

Eman patted Ruk on the shoulder, then departed.

Ruk turned away from the hologram when he heard a soft chime. Spinning back around, he thought the sensor scans had changed to show a new electromagnetic signature cut across the area. Returning to the table, Ruk tapped the controls, fine tuning the feed coming in from around the Protian Enterprises’ complex. However, there was nothing.

The clone rubbed his eyes.

“Just a ghost signal, not a data feed from inside the lab. The stress is just getting to me.”

He turned away, leaving the room to collect his ARC armor.


	3. Chapter 3

Later, inside the Protian Enterprise lab, Ruk scouted ahead of the others. He moved fast, trying not to waste even a single step. Thirty meters after entering the building, Ruk reached a junction between two hallways that bisected that half of the building.

Amber emergency lighting filled the hallway, casting a dull tint across the blue trim of his ARC armor. The walls were littered with spider web-like cracks, jagged rents that ran haphazardly along the wall. Each a monument to a stress fracture in the building itself. The entire complex was slowly surrendering to the planet’s gravity.

The situation brought back memories of raids on Separatist forces during the Clone Wars. Rushing into a shattered droid factory to gain either ground or valuable intelligence on Separatist activities. Other times it was to rescue innocents caught in the middle of a brutal war. Ruk blinked, pushing aside the visions.

He squatted down and glanced back at the others. Pala, now wearing her white ARC armor with red trim and the stylized image of a Monastery sabercat’s fanged head painted prominently across her helmet, hurried up to join him. Ruk’s helmet chimed as she opened a private communication channel with him.

“I _cannot_ believe you let him come along. You could’ve managed the grav-mine,” she said.

Ruk shook his head.

“No. I know how they work and I can turn them on. Also, I can field repair one. But make one out of spare parts? Halron’s skills are better suited to that. Besides, this is his way of forging a new process that others have to follow. He’ll make sure that thing stays on, even if it kills him.”

“Crafty,” she said.

“Diplomatic,” he replied with a chuckle.

“From a certain point of view,” Pala countered.

Ruk swapped over to the team channel.

“According to Pala’s calculations, this is as far as we go. Halron, how’s our grav-mine? Eman? How’s our timer?”

“Mine coming online now,” Halron reported.

“One hour and fifty minutes left,” the Bothan replied. “Past that, Ms Oannes might start suffering cell degradation.”

“Degradation?” Mira echoed over the team's communications from back at base camp.

“It’s… a theory,” the doctor replied, hurrying down the corridor toward Pala and Ruk. “There have been a few rare cases of living beings exposed to cronau radiation without protection. This type of radiation doesn’t burn you. It attempts to force you across from realspace to hyperspace at the cellular level. Think of it as being forced into changing from a solid to energy a little at a time, but there’s no drive system to manage the shift. Medical people called it being ‘glitched’. It doesn’t always happen though, which is promising. Unfortunately, no one has figured out why it doesn’t always happen.”

There was a long silence over the team comlink channel.

Ruk had read those medical reports as part of his work when he studied for his doctorial. What Eman had said was true. However, the doctor had sugar-coated the effect in his explanation. The details about 'glitching’ weren’t for the faint of heart. He cleared his throat.

“Good to know the details, doctor.”

Pala’teska tapped Ruk on the shoulder plate of his armor.

“Cronau flow shift in thirty seconds. Halron, how’s the grav-mine?”

There was a slight struggle of static before Halron answered, as if he was fidgeting with his suit’s comlink. They had left Halron back where the team had entered the broken laboratory. Based on Pala’teska’s calculations of the cronau flow, that was the ideal location to activate the gravity field to alter the radiation’s path.

“Operating well within safety parameters. Ready to activate.”

Ruk glanced at the chronometer on his gauntlet, then back to the eerie bands of feathery white clouds of fog floating in the air in the corridor ahead of them, cutting off their route forward.

“Do it.”

“Activating,” Halron replied.

At first nothing happened. Then the thin energy clouds moved, shifting into swirls as gravitational waves met cronau radiation.

“Goddess keep us safe,” Pala muttered. The rest of what she said was a short, Twi’lek prayer for safe passage.

The entire flow of energy in the hallway glittered with a cobalt blue inner light. It emanated from inside the cronau field, bathing the corridors until the sparse emergency lighting was all but drowned out. Then, the radiation fog abruptly dissolved until all that remained was thin, thread-like ghostly strands that wandered the ceiling.

“It’s gone.” Eman’s voice was soft, as if in awe of what he just witnessed. “I thought the grav-mine would bend the floor or make a tunnel. Not dissolve the radiation fog.”

Ruk studied the sensor readings coming in across his helmet. He shook his head.

“Not gone. Moved. It’ll all be temporarily diverted. Turn the mine off, it’ll come right back.”

“Like dumping rocks in a river,” Pala said, staring at the mist ribbons wriggling along the ceiling. “So long as the rocks are there, the river changes course.”

Ruk slowly waved the palm of his right hand at the intersection of the two corridors. The scan results streamed across his helmet’s holoscreen.

“Structural damage from the explosion and exposure to the radiation flow. But it’s holding for now,” he explained. “Let’s move.”

Eman checked the building blueprints on his datapad, they pointed off to the team’s right.

“Computer core is that way. Twenty meters.”

Ruk nodded before he darted around the corner. On his helmet’s sensors, he saw the rest of the team right behind him.

Dim blue lighting glimmered overhead from rod-shaped lights set in the corner where the ceiling met the wall. They were interspersed along the corridor with a three meter gap between them. In those spots, shadows draped the walls.

As Ruk led his small team down the hallway, fleeting ghosts of energy danced near the ceiling. He gave them the occasional glance, but kept the majority of his focus on the hallway and the task ahead. It was hard to not feel like the radiation was stalking them.

Ruk reached the end of the corridor where it came to a dead end with three doors. Pala and Eman huddled around a keypad to the door on the right. They pried open the keypad facing, then went to work splicing into the door mechanism with a portable battery pack to activate the emergency open sequence. Ruk checked his chronometer.

They had been in the building ten standard minutes. A dark shape twitched in his peripheral vision to his left, back the way they came. Ruk spun, hand dropping to his waist until he remembered there were no sidearms allowed on this search and rescue mission. He squinted at the gloom.

But there wasn’t anything there. The hallway was empty save for scattered boxes, crates and the blue glowrods at the ceiling. Also, the ever present white trails of cronau radiation slithered along the ceiling. The effect made him feel he was underwater, looking up at the surface. He grimaced, then let out a soft, irritated snort.

“What?” Eman asked. “I’ve got nothing on my sensors but the radiation flow and the survivor’s signal.”

Ruk started at the sound of his voice. The Bothan was now standing next to him, looking back in the direction they came from. The clone shook his head.

“The shadows are making me jumpy.” he waved a hand at the hallway. “The whole place is just… wrong. For a moment, I even thought I heard battle droids.”

“Protian had their people turn on a hyperdrive while still planet-side. That’s about as wrong as it gets. If it helps any, I’m hearing things too. Whispers. Voices. My best guess? Side effect of the radiation. The longer we’re in here, the worse it might get.” The doctor shrugged. “We just need to get to Rhia Oannes and get out fast. Time check?”

Ruk checked the chronometer.

“It’s been twelve since we entered. Only one hour, thirty-eight minutes standard time left.”

Eman patted Ruk on an armored shoulder. Past the lightly tinted visor of the doctor’s helmet, a grin spread across Eman’s furred snout.

“We’ll get her and us out. All we need to do is get past this door.”

“Almost through,” Pala said from over by the door. “Working the last cypher now.”

The lock clicked, and the door slid open a few centimeters before it stopped. Eman and Ruk rushed to the door as Pala stepped back to re-pack her lock slicer kit. Grabbing the edge, the two men hauled at the metal safety door. The door slid a stubborn few slow centimeters further. Ruk strained, feeling the muscles in his back start to complain.

Suddenly, metal groaned, and the door snapped part way open. Tendrils of smoky-white cronau radiation immediately snaked into the room. It was as if the energy was eager to get at whatever was inside.

Ruk saw Eman nod.

“Go!” the doctor exclaimed.

The clone let go of the door immediately. Stepping around Eman, he bolted through the doorway, trying to outrun the radiation flow. Sensors showed that Pala was a step right behind him.

Ruk darted through a small technician's office and workspace, long since ruined by the disaster because of a collapsed wall. He turned left and raced into the computer core room itself.

Helmet sensors warned him of the first stun bolt. Ruk dodged to the left as the bolt splashed against the wall behind him. Instinct took over and his hand dropped to his waist for a sidearm that wasn’t there. Realization of that dawned on Ruk as the second stun bolt hammered into his chest.

He never felt himself hit the floor.


	4. Chapter 4

“Ruk!”

Pala’s alarmed, yet melodic, voice sounded far off, like she was shouting through tempered glass or fabric. Then the memories rushed back. There was Protian Labs. The company’s failed hyperdrive experiment and their trapped employee. Running into the computer core room to outrace the radiation.

Finally, getting shot by a stun bolt.

Ruk snapped fully awake with a gasp, staring at the floor through his helmet. With a growl-like groan, he rolled onto his side then tried to force himself upright.

Aches ran wild, radiating out from where the stun bolt had punched him in the middle of his chest. Curled forward into a ball, he sat on his knees, while his abused joints screamed at him. Ruk slammed a fist against the floor before he shoved himself up to one knee.

“Ruk!”

It was Pala again. She was somewhere off to his left. From what his rattled mind remembered, that was opposite the door. 

“Me’vaar ti gar?”

Mando’a. The words were in Mando’a. Ruk’s brain latched onto her question, asking him how he was doing or for a Kaminoan Clone Trooper, his situation report. He nodded slowly.

“Duse.” He swallowed despite a dry throat. “Garbage,” he repeated in Galactic Basic. “I feel like warm garbage. Who shot me?”

“Shot  _ us _ . I dropped after you did.”

Ruk looked up in time to see Pala stalking the length of the room like a caged sabercat. She flexed her hands into fists while she searched the room, armor covered lekku swatting the air behind her. However, something was missing. 

“Where’s Eman?”

The comlink crackled to live in Ruk’s helmet. It must have for Pala also, since he saw her stop instantly in her tracks and stand still.

“Awake?” 

It was Eman. He chuckled, then quickly pushed on.

“Good. Rhia shot you both twice, just to be sure. I’ve heard about the famous ARC armor and the rumored resilience of the Clone Trooper subspecies. We wanted to be sure.”

“What the  _ sithspawn _ , Eman?” Ruk snarled. Bracing a hand on his thigh, he shoved himself to his feet.

“Just fulfilling a previous contract,” the Bothan explained. “Even if Protian was clueless that they were ‘loaning’ the use of their lab for all this.”

“ _ What _ _?_ ” Ruk spat out. “You caused…  _ this _ _?_ ” The clone trooper slashed a hand around at the reinforced walls, whose fracture cracks were made even more ominous in the blue-toned emergency lighting. 

“Not me personally, but my associate, Rhia, had a hand in that experiment.”

“Let us out, Eman,” Pala snarled. “It’s only fair. We should get a shot to wring your kriffing neck!”

The Bothan chuckled again.

“I don’t think so. That would complicate our stealing a shuttle. Our data chip won’t deliver itself.”

Ruk needed a target, specifically one shaped like the Bothan doctor. Lacking that, he glared at the ceiling.

“So what, you just wanted to gloat, you stinking piece of dwang?” the clone snapped.

“Oh, nothing of the kind. I just needed a solid recording of your voices so I could manufacture some terrified cries for help. Alive, you two make fantastic bait.”

The connection clicked off and Ruk slammed a fist against the wall. He raced to the only door out of the computer core and found it sealed shut but with a haphazard weld. The weld marks looked familiar, but the fog that lingered in his head refused to let him track down that memory. Ruk spun around to face the room.

“Pala…”

However, the Twi’lek was already on the move. She darted across the room toward the black octagonal column that encased the lab’s computer core. Pala yanked the lock slicer kit from a pouch at her waist, then knelt down at a terminal. Ten seconds later she had the terminal’s cover on the floor and her slicer kit connected to the lab’s computer core.

“The power is unstable in the building, but Protian had thought of installing an underground backup reactor. Only,  _ someone _ disconnected the backup’s sensors so it wouldn’t register the lab losing main power.”

“What will bringing that back online get us?”

Pala tapped a series of keys in rapid succession. A low hum replied from somewhere deep under the floor. She turned her helmet toward his. Ruk could hear her almost musical chuckle over the commlink.

“Blast doors. Now Eman and his friend Rhia are stuck in this death trap with us.” Her fingers danced over the keypad. “But I’m also not able to get a signal back to base camp. You?”

Ruk keyed the commlink in his helmet for the channel to the base and heard a low squawk of noise. Scowling, he swapped to the private channel with Pala.

“We had signal before getting trapped in here. Eman must have a jammer set up.” Using a keypad on his gauntlet, Ruk accessed the blueprints for the lab. “So, what about that data chip he was bragging about? Think it was real or some sort of distraction? I mean, it was like listening to some holo-drama villain.”

“Already checking,” she replied, bent over the keyboard. 

Ruk paced, studying his surroundings and taking in the details while a miniature hologram of the lab’s blueprints render over his gauntlet.

The room was a vault, both literally and figuratively.

He couldn’t be sure, but using his armor’s sensors picked up the dense alloys like durelium in the walls. The alloy was a common component in the construction of starship hulls and blast doors, which meant the room was technically blast proof. That explained a lack of stress cracks running through the material.

However, the walls looked as deformed as anywhere else in the lab. They were bent, twisted by a few degrees but not enough to be considered unstable. Based on the pattern of the gentle curve, the walls had buckled during the initial blast of energy from the testing chamber that was only meters away. Ruk thought about the Protian employees on duty during the explosion. He shuddered, then completed a sweep of the room.

There were three large octagonal columns total in the room, which included the one Pala was working with. While the first was the computer core for the lab, Ruk estimated that the other two were backup systems. Near those, he found a single desk and two empty crates. The desk had little in it, just some datapads and other tools that a tech would use to maintain a computer core. Past the desk and crates, Ruk found two doors concealed behind the computer cores. 

The first door was locked tight with a keypad. Ruk left the keypad for Pala to work on later and tried the second door. Behind it was a maintenance closet. Pala rescued him from having to search a wide variety of sonic cleaners.

“Ruk. I’m pretty sure that the data chip is real. But you’ll also want to see this.”

Ruk joined Pala at the terminal where she highlighted a series of files.

“The primary system took a hit from the accident and a lot of the data was corrupted because of that. What Miss Oannes downloaded? What’s probably on that data chip? I wouldn’t trust those files to be readable. Now, Protian Labs has a corporate policy of regular backups. It seems Miss Oannes either didn’t remember or couldn’t get at the backup core because of the power failure. So she missed these.”

Pala opened the files, spreading them out across the holoscreen. Looking over her shoulder, it took Ruk two diagrams and design descriptions before he shook his head.

“Khyber crystals. That’s the secret ingredient of Protian Lab’s new hyperdrive? Oh, sure, let’s take the focusing crystal of a lightsaber… of a kriffing Death Star’s superlaser… and use it to amplify a hyperdrive’s output. All without considering how unstable that can be. This explains a lot.”

Pala pointed at the technical schematics on the third document.

“I can’t believe Protian thought they could get away with this. It seems Rhia Oannes was the one in charge of the research team around the crystals. Like what facets to cut, how to align them, and theorized power output. She wasn’t the only one on the team, but she’s the one who had the vision.”

Ruk nodded.

“Then she might have known this would happen. Now I’m curious as to what she and Eman are up to. I’ve worked with enough Jedi that I’m wondering if this ‘accident’ was intentional. Nothing in those files suggests any last-minute changes to the experiment.”

Producing a data chip from her utility belt, Pala plugged it in and downloaded the details of the project. 

“These notes are coming with us and the backup erased. Null Force scientists can figure out how bad this really is so we can find a way to counter it, if it crops up again.” 

“Any luck getting a signal out?” Ruk asked.

“No,” Pala replied. “Not at all. We need to warn the others about Eman and our ‘survivor’ we were supposed to rescue. So, how  are we getting out of here?”

The clone trooper expanded the hologram of the base blueprints so they hovered in the air over his gauntlet’s projector. 

“The door in got welded shut. There’s another door out, but I don’t see where it goes on this diagram.”

“Later addition?”

Ruk shrugged. “Probably. Could be for emergency reasons or could be for base system maintenance.”

Pala rose and disconnected her slicer tools from the terminal. 

“There’s only one way to find out. Besides, we’d better get going. If Eman’s data chip isn’t readable, they’ll be back to shoot their way in to look for replacement diagrams,” she said as she raced over to the locked hatch.

“Don’t remind me,” Ruk grumbled, then squinted at the glowing blueprints. “We’re close to the test chamber. That has to be a maintenance hatch connecting the computer core to the testing chamber. Something added after the lab was set up. It should give us a way out, provided it didn’t collapse in the accident.”

Two short chimes later, the keypad clicked, and the door slid open with a sharp rush of air. 

“Ruk. It didn’t collapse.”

The clone shut off the holographic blueprints and hurried over to join her. Ruk slowed to a walk the moment he saw a pulsating blue-white glow from beyond the open doorway. Pala stepped back, turning her helmet to face Ruk. Not saying a word, she just pointed at the glow.

Ruk walked over to the doorway and stopped. She was right. The corridor hadn’t collapsed. Right then, he wished it had. 

It wasn’t a maintenance corridor but a catwalk, a platform, that overlooked the long tunnel that was the ‘test range’ for experiments. The tunnel ran the entire length of the extensive building and the platform ran right along its wall. There was a railing, but in his opinion it was mostly for show. Ruk’s helmet sensors placed the room’s dimensions at two hundred meters long, twenty-four meters wide, and thirty meters tall. 

The walls were more durelium plate, which had taken the brunt of the blow during the accident. Metal walls and supports were twisted, if not melted in places, from the initial explosion. Braces and support struts to hold prototypes still stood like twisted, misshapen metal claws rising out of the middle of the room. What they surrounded wasn’t a prototype hyperdrive.

Over wreckage that might be half of the hyperdrive, there was a jagged rip in the air, like a vicious maw turned on its side. Blue-white energy pulsated out of it, slowly twisting the chamber into a spiral with the maw as the epicenter. Through the tear, Ruk saw a gray void. Nothingness. His suit sensors confirmed a nasty fear.

It was hyperspace. The experimental device had never shut off.

Sensor data streamed in, filling the holoscreens in Ruk’s helmet with fresh information. He took in as much as he could with a glance and scowled. The rift between realspace and hyperspace was growing. 

“Pala, I have a bad feeling about this.” 


	5. Chapter 5

“All right,” Ruk said. “First, we warn the others. Then we deal with this… thing.”

He looked back and forth toward either end of the chamber.

“This platform runs the length of the building. Pala, is there anywhere we could boost our comms signal from here? Maybe find the edge of the jamming field?”

She turned to look in either direction, then pointed past Ruk towards what looked like another maintenance door 180 meters away.

“There. That should be the door to a communication console and station. I can boost a signal from there.”

Ruk did a double take at her.

“There? A communication station attached directly to all this? You’re kidding.”

Pala shook her head.

“Not at all. It’s a backup station for emergencies.”

“Well, this counts.”

Ruk took off toward the door with Pala close beside him.

Racing along the platform, Ruk chanced a quick look at the sensor display in his helmet. The hyperspace rift hadn’t moved, only grown a few centimeters larger. Debris from the shattered chassis of the former hyperspace drive itself had started to move. Resisting the pull of the planet’s gravity, the blackened, twisted pieces of metal floated into the air around the rift.

They followed an invisible path, caught up in the altered physics around the hyperspace ‘tear’. Slowly, the pieces orbited the chaotic energies, like waterlogged trash slowly circling a drain. Ruk shook his head and fixed his eyes ahead of them.

“How does it even have power right now?” He asked.

Pala, running almost beside him, was quiet save for a light hum which meant she was thinking. After a few seconds, she replied.

“Maybe an isolated reactor or engine, like from a speeder bike. It must be. Something portable, but with enough power to simulate the quick power surge for a hyperdrive jump.”

“But it’s something we can shut down or turn off.”

“Provided we can reach it. It will be out there under the device or what’s left of it.”

“Lovely.” He shook his head. “I just don’t have inventive enough swear words for how big a cluster this is.”

She chuckled, but Ruk didn’t hear any actual humor.

“A lab like this should have maintenance drones. They’re supposed to. I can use two of those to get close and shut down the power. But it will slag the drones.”

Ruk shook his head. “Don’t care. I’ll buy Protian new drones. Signal boost first. Drones second.”

Past the door, the emergency station was literally a console in a recessed area of a corridor leading away from the test chamber. The station’s console was online, creating an island of blue light in the hallway. Pala tapped a few keys, shook her head, then pulled open a repair panel to the right of the device. 

“Won’t work?”

She pulled out a bundle of optical wires, then selected four marked with a blue band.

“The console? No. It’s stuck trying to cycle its system’s online. But we need the connection, not the console.”

Using a multi-tool from her belt, Pala connected her gauntlet’s data ports to the lab’s communication system. 

“Ruk? I’ve patched the system into our private comm channel. The system’s unstable from all the abuse it’s taken. It won’t hold for longer than a short burst before the relays at the top of the building burn out.”

Ruk flipped the cover open on his sensor glove and started typing on the small keyboard. 

“What…?” Pala asked, but Ruk shook his head.

“Text. Unstable or not, text strains the system less.” 

Quickly typing the message, he hit ‘send’. The system immediately replied that the message was delivered.

Pala let out a sigh. 

“System hasn’t degraded. We should be able to wait for a reply.”

Then a shadow crossed the sensor display in Ruk’s helmet.

“Pala? Any way to make that portable?”

She turned and leaned in toward the forest of cables. 

“Yes. Though it might make the instability worse.”

“Do it.”

He snapped the words out, not quite like an order. Pala reacted instantly. There was no way he could see through her helmet’s visor; it was tinted like his. But the way her helmeted head pivoted in his direction suggested either a scowl or a frown of curiosity. She focused on the forest of optical cables.

“Two minutes.” After a brief pause she added, “is it a cronau energy wave? With the rift still open, which I still can’t grasp, there should be regular wave bursts.”

“I’m not sure.”

Ruk squinted down the hallway into the darkness. Sensors should have given him a clear picture or reading of whatever it was. It bothered him it didn’t. He stepped out of the alcove and into the hallway. On instinct, his hand dropped to his waist until he remembered that he came on this mission unarmed.

“I told you, they  _ will _ be here. They should have the rest of the designs we lack.”

The sound of the voice made him go stone stiff. Ruk didn’t recognize the voice other than it was slightly higher in octave than his and wasn’t Eman or Pala. A human woman’s voice? He wasn’t sure.

What grabbed him was the chill under the words. That made him feel like a bug about to be dissected. It bothered him more that his armor and helmet’s sensors just would not give him a clear image. Ruk eased closer. Suddenly, his helmet cut through the stray cronau interference.

“Ones to replace the corrupted files from the server?”

“Yes.”

It was Eman and Rhia. They were walking in his direction.

A corridor was an ugly place for a fight, no matter how action-packed the holovids made it look. In a fight like that, no one came away without needing major medical help. Ruk slowly retraced his steps, staying close to the shadows and moving slow so he could eavesdrop.

Neither one looked happy. However, the doctor’s body language suggested contained rage. The Bothan shook his head.

“I’m disappointed. I thought a fully trained Tleilaxu Mentat armed with their order’s astounding mental computing powers would have planned for even  _ this _ problem. My associates won’t take this well.”

Rhia shot a look at the doctor hot enough to melt steel.

“No one can plan enough for a corporate bureaucracy. So threaten all you want. I’m not impressed. Also, without me, you won’t be able to reverse the hyperdrive prototype into those ‘hyperspace rift torpedoes’ you want so badly.”

The words stunned Ruk bad enough he missed a step. Catching himself before he fell, he brushed the wall. The resulting clack of armor against building echoed far too loud for Ruk’s comfort in the hallway. He froze.

“Good going, Rukus,” he muttered. “Way to earn your name again.”

“What was that?” Eman demanded.

Over his sensors, Ruk could tell Rhia had turned to face him, despite the shadows. He let out a low, ragged sigh.

“It’s the clone. He’s here.”

Ruk bolted back down the hallway chased by blaster fire.

Pala was standing upright, stretching her lower back when Ruk reached her. Startled, she spun toward him, hands up to defend herself. There was a metal box strapped to her left forearm that was wired into her armor’s gauntlet. Ruk pointed at it.

“That it?”

Pala tilted her head a fraction to the right. Ruk knew that was a sure sign she was frowning at him. 

“The relay? Yes. Why?”

Blaster shots burned the surrounding air. They both flinched. 

“That’s why,” Ruk said. “Run! Back to the catwalk.”

Racing out the doorway, Pala turned to its keypad. The door slammed shut a second later. 

Ruk waved her to the right side of the doorframe while he stood on the other. Pala nodded and complied.

“Ambush when they walk out?” she whispered over the comlink.

“Roger that,” Ruk replied. “We need to get that blaster away from them. Without it, we’ve got the advantage.”

A blood red lightsaber blade speared through the middle of the durasteel door.

Ruk licked his lips. 

“Right! New plan!” 


	6. Chapter 6

“I _hate_ this plan.”

“So do I,” Ruk hissed.

“Then why are we doing this?” Pala growled.

“Because it’s our _only_ plan!” he whispered back over his comlink. “Look. Just keep climbing to that maintenance pod and get that kriffing khyber crystal out of the Twisted Mentat’s murder machine. I’ll keep Eman busy!”

“Just because Eman’s got a red-bladed lightsaber doesn’t mean he’s some Sith warrior.” Pala snapped.

“I’d rather plan like he is and stay alive than get mowed down like bantha weed.”

Ruk shifted his weight. The mangled supports under the catwalk moved but didn’t make a sound. He let out a soft sigh of relief then glanced up. Pala had scaled halfway up the test chamber wall. Another few meters she would reach the maintenance pod embedded in the ceiling. It was a miracle the thing survived the initial explosion at all.

Catwalk planks rattled somewhere above and behind Ruk. His eyes flicked over to the sensor display in his helmet. A figure carrying an active plasma energy signature came into unpleasant focus.

“Eman’s heading my way.”

“Going silent,” Pala replied. “Force be with you.”

“And you. Watch out for that mentat. I don’t see her on my sensors.”

“Got it.”

The Bothan doctor strolled along the catwalk. Metal grates rattled under each footstep. Eman held his lightsaber down low on his right side with one hand. Barely a low guard. Ruk let out a quiet snort.

“Cocky bastard,” he muttered. “Just a little closer. I’m just part of the busted supports under the catwalk. Ignore any hint of dingy armor. Just keep on walking.”

Eman stopped directly above Ruk’s hiding spot underneath the catwalk.

The clone scowled.

“Ruk? I know you’re here,” Eman said casually. “You’re close by, I can feel it. Look, perhaps I came off a bit rash before. The Sith and Mandalorians have worked together in the past. I know, I know, you haven’t taken the Oath so you’re not a True Mandalorian. But I’ve worked with you long enough, I consider you a True Mandalorian. Also, my business partners are rather open-minded. They’d easily agree to this arrangement.”

The man paced back and forth on the catwalk plate. Below, Ruk clenched his jaw until it almost hurt. Slowly, he eased one leg until he had the bottom of his boot braced against one corner of the catwalk. The grate didn’t rattle, but shifted ever so slightly.

Ruk didn’t reply. Everything in him desperately wanted to, but he knew better. Sith could be fantastic warriors. But the most dangerous Sith were the ones who had a way with words. Eman, in Ruk’s own opinion, had every sign of being a Sith. Right down to the sickly, almost glowing, bloodshot yellow eyes. Bothans didn’t have yellow eyes.

Eman waved his free hand while he continued his leisurely stroll to the far side of the catwalk plate.

“Weapons are part of a Mandalorian’s religion, yes? Think of it. A new weapon of this magnitude! A hyperspace rift torpedo! Just the threat of using this will stop wars!”

Anger boiled over as Ruk kicked up against the corner of the grate with both feet. Metal weak from the explosion gave under the assault. Bolts snapped free with a pop and the catwalk grate edge above Ruk sailed upward. The side under Eman dropped out from under him. Ruk scrambled up onto the catwalk to the sound of a Bothan yowl of surprise and anger. The clone spun to face the Sith doctor.

The ruse had almost worked.

Once the grate dropped away, Eman started his plunge toward a pile of jagged metal wreckage five meters down. However, the Sith grabbed the stable portion of the catwalk and pulled himself to safety. Already the loose catwalk grating, now supported by just a single warped metal beam across its middle, rotated back in Ruk’s direction.

The doctor’s lightsaber had gone out in the brief exchange. That meant it had a “dead man’s switch”. Ruk filed that bit away, but that didn’t help to disarm the Sith. The clone looked around for what he could use.

He looked at the rotating, two meter square grate. A desperate plan bloomed. It would have to do.

Once the grating fell even with the rest of the catwalk, Ruk jumped onto the nearest side. The edge rocketed down from the impact and he dropped like a rock from orbit. Two meters away, Eman was already turning around, shaking his head to get his bearings.

When the square grate was mid-chest, Ruk grabbed the edge. It wasn’t much of a handhold, but he held on with all he was worth. The initial impact, along with Ruk’s bodyweight that included armor, propelled the grate at high speed. The last metal brace screamed at the abuse, warning Eman to the danger. The Sith turned, igniting his lightsaber.

The Bothan was a second too late.

Using momentum, acrobatic skill, and a silent prayer to the Force, Ruk swung like an acrobat on a trapeze. He soared upward as Eman spun around in time for Ruk to take two hard boot-heels to the snout. The Sith flew backwards from the impact.

More important to Ruk, the Sith’s lightsaber flew up out of Eman’s grip. Keeping a desperate grip on the makeshift trapeze as it pinwheeled around, Ruk reached out for the weapon.

But the universe had other plans.

The last abused metal support for the grate snapped just as Ruk’s fingers touched the weapon. Ruk and the grate fell in one direction, the lightsaber in the other.

Ruk twisted in mid-air and crashed into the intact catwalk opposite from the one Eman was on. The armor took the brunt of the blow, but Ruk still grunted as the air was almost knocked out of him. He scrambled onto the catwalk and rolled into a kneeling crouch.

Eman, blood oozing from his snout with searing rage in his eyes, came to a crouch at the same time. He stabbed a hand out toward his lightsaber. The weapon immediately reacted, flying toward its master.

It only made it halfway. The whipcord line from Ruk’s gauntlet froze the lightsaber in mid-flight.

Eman scowled and tensed, hand shaking. Ruk felt the intense pull on the weapon through his whipcord. It was like trying to hold a leash on a determined bantha. Ruk flexed his right arm, pulling back. The gauntlet groaned at the abuse. Suspended between the two men, the lightsaber rattled.

“Stop wars?” Ruk growled through clenched teeth. “Didn’t one of you Sith di’kuts say that about the Death Star? Look what happened there!”

“That was Darth Sidious’ mistake. I don’t plan to repeat it.”

Eman let out a low growl. Was blood oozing faster from the Bothan’s snout? Ruk couldn’t tell. Almost all his attention was on this deadly tug of war, that he was losing. The lightsaber was creeping toward the Sith a centimeter at a time. A part of Ruk’s mind wished he had installed a flamecaster in his gauntlet.

“How long?” Ruk snarled. “You had to have known about all this. That all these people that worked here would die. How long have you been planning this?”

“The Consortium set this up well before your ‘Null Force’ organization has existed. All I had to do was play along with the simpletons and this ‘investigation’ into the cause of the ‘tragedy’. Then use the Tleilaxian’s data bursts to ‘reveal’ there was a ‘survivor’ that needed rescue.”

Ruk twitched.

“That data burst I saw!”

The surprise cost him precious centimeters. Eman and his use of the Force dragged the clone across the grate toward the pit. Ruk quickly recovered and slammed a boot heel against a small, twisted edge on his side of the bent catwalk.

Eman smirked. 

“Oh yes, the Consortium and the Sith know all about the little brain child of Vorboccioini, Vorkosigan and Princess Katianna.”

Ruk fought down the panic that Null Force, a covert operations group, might not be so ‘covert’.

“The ‘Consortium’? You can’t be serious about that name?”

“Ruk! Listen. To. Me,” Eman snarled. “All I need is the mentat and the khyber crystal. Between what the crystal has probably recorded by now like a holocron and that Tleilaxian mentat, I can reverse the process to make all the hyperspace rift torpedoes I need. Just walk away, Ruk. Take Pala with you. Just walk away. I’ll even let you have my lightsaber as a memento.”

“Get burnt!” Ruk snarled.

“You first.”

Eman dropped his outstretched hand. The whipcord instantly snapped back in Ruk’s direction, shooting the lightsaber at him like a missile. He dodged to one side right as proximity alarms in his helmet screamed about an incoming energy wave.

Muscles burned from the exertion as Ruk turned sideways. Blue-white lightning slammed into the metal catwalk, then grazed his right leg. Ruk gasped and bit down a scream, dropp to one knee, panting. Eman’s laugh was ugly.

“Felt good? I’ve more where that came from.”

The comlink crackled in Ruk’s ear.

“Ruk? I got it!”

Ruk laughed. Startled, Eman took an involuntary step back which allowed Ruk to get to his feet and withdraw the whipcord. The clone hooked the lightsaber to his utility belt. 

“Sorry Eman, you’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

He jerked his thumb over shoulder as the nightmarish rift between realities sputtered then spiraled closed with an unpleasant sucking sound. 

“We’ve got your crystal.”

A shriek of metal behind Eman split the air. Ruk looked past Eman as the Bothan whirled around to face the sound.

Dr. Halron Cote emerged from a doorway behind Eman. The thin human looked between Ruk and Eman, frowning with confusion.

“Ruk? Dr. Griqat? Ruk I got parts of your text. What’s wrong?”

Eman sneered at Ruk, stabbing a hand out and unleashing a blue-white bolt of Force lightning at Halron.


	7. Chapter 7

Ruk moved the instant Eman threw the lightning. There was no way he could get there to shove Halron out of the way, but he could stop the blast from killing the man. Sprinting to the edge, he launched himself at the Sith on the other side of the pit. 

Landing behind Eman, Ruk started in surprise. Halron was untouched. Filling the air around the man was a yellow-brown energy field. This was blocking Eman’s lightning attack. Ruk recognized the energy. 

It was a shield belt. 

How Halron even had one, since only the Vor nobility actually used them, Ruk didn’t know. Right then, he didn’t care. 

Eman turned the moment Ruk landed beside him. The Sith reached for the lightsaber at Ruk’s belt at the same time Ruk hammered for the Bothan’s floating ribs. Eman grabbed the lightsaber but Ruk was a second faster.

The Sith doubled over in a fit of dry retching. Ruk snatched the lightsaber back, then tried to use it as a club against Eman’s head. The swing missed as Eman stumbled to his left, out of reach. Ruk closed the gap but remembered too late who he fought. 

A bolt of Force lightning hit him in the center of his chest.

Every nerve was on fire. The snap of electricity was everywhere. It had become his world. Somewhere, he heard screaming. Then he realized that was coming from him. Somewhere among the pain, Ruk heard voices. Urgent, alarmed and calling his name. Pala? Mira? He wasn’t even sure if it was Halron. It almost sounded like one of the Jedi Masters. Ruk couldn’t focus. There was too much agony. 

Then the pain shut off like a switch.

Ruk blinked through tears and at a sea of sand-brown energy around him. Kneeling in front of him was Halron Cote, using his force belt and himself as a living shield against Eman’s lightning. Ruk tried to talk but it tame out a toad’s croak.

“I don’t know what is happening but I know the stories and what you  _ might _ be, Doctor Griqat!  _ If _ that’s actually your name,” Halron snapped.

Burned and slightly stunned by both Force lightning and Halron’s unexpected burst of bravery, Ruk almost missed the call over his sputtering comlink.

“Ruk! I saw that! Heading your way!”

Blaster shots interrupted Pala’s next few words, then the signal cleared.

“And I’m coming in hot with the crystal! Oh, I also found the Tleilaxian. All right, no. She sort of found me!”

Ruk groaned, then coughed. If there was a way this could get any worse, he wasn’t sure what that could be.

Lightning crackled around Eman’s hands as he called upon the Dark Side of the Force. At least that’s how Ruk translated what he saw. 

Vor shield belts were tough. He’d seen them deflect lightsaber blades and most kinds of energy. They didn’t stop slowly moving objects, which wasn’t a problem right now. However, shield belts had limits. They could be disabled or beaten down like any other shield device. Worst of all, if beaten down, there was a small chance that the power would turn back on itself into its power core. 

Then the shield belt would detonate with the force of a photon torpedo. Ruk was betting Force lightning might cause just that result. 

“Halron,” Ruk croaked. 

Every inch of his throat felt raw, but he wasn’t done yet. No. Not now. Something inside him refused. He slid his hand into a compartment of his utility belt and gripped a small cylinder. He had a few tricks left.

Lightning cracked again, playing over Halron’s shield. The brown energy danced in time with the Force lightning. Behind it, he heard Eman screech with rage.

“My shield belt is holding,” Halron explained rapidly. “But I don’t know its tolerance levels against mystical lightning.”

Ruk nodded, but regretted the motion. Pain danced over every nerve, squeezing a gargled cry out of him. Clenching his jaw, Ruk pushed past the pain and shoved himself upright. Confused, Halron helped out of instinct. Beyond Halron, Ruk saw Eman stalking across the width of the catwalk toward them. The next bolt of Force lightning would be at point blank range. 

“When I say ‘move’, dodge left,” Ruk explained. “Pala get ready,” he continued.

Lightning danced around Eman’s fingers. 

Halron answered with a quick nod. 

“What are we doing?” he asked.

“Something new. Pala! Drop Trooper Two-step!”

Ruk heard Pala chuckle. The sound was like a balm to his nerves. Meanwhile, through the faceplate of his rescue squad helmet, Halron shot Ruk a puzzled look. The clone shook his head at the man as the comlink crackled.

“Ready!” Pala replied with a backdrop of blaster fire. 

To his right, Ruk saw Pala racing toward them. Five yards behind her, Rhia was firing rapidly, filling the air with blaster shot.

Ruk let out a slow, burning breath. It felt like the galaxy had folded in on itself to focus on this one point in time.

Behind Halron, Eman was not even a meter away. The Sith strolled with short, methodical steps. Lightning snapped and writhed around the end of the man’s arms like starving, deranged snakes.

Ruk coughed. He just needed two more seconds.

“Just a little closer, you murderous bastard,” Ruk muttered in a hoarse voice. “Fifteen people died here because of you. This is for  _ them _ .”

“I gave you a chance, Ruk.” 

Eman’s voice was unnaturally calm. Icy. 

“But since you turned it down, I can’t let you or anyone else here talk.” 

“Eman?” Ruk croaked.

This stopped the Sith short. Eman hesitated. 

“Yes, Ruk?”

“Get. Bent.”

Eman’s face turned dark, his eyes shifting from yellow to blood red as Force lightning leaped around him. 

“Halron, now!” Ruk ordered.

Halron threw himself to the side. Ruk staggered forward, hefting the small cylinder up to point one round end at Eman.

It was Ruk’s tactical glowrod.

Flicking the ‘on’ switch, he pointed the high-intensity beam directly in Eman’s face. The Bothan shrieked at the light streaming into his eyes. He staggered back a step.

The pain from moving was intense. Ruk felt both lightheaded and sick from the attempt. But he wasn’t done. It wasn’t over. Not yet. Ruk let out a roar and slammed a kick into Eman’s mid-section.

The Sith dropped to the catwalk like a stone from orbit, gasping.

Still, Ruk continued to yell, pushing through the pain. Everything hurt. It all hurt so much. But his yell had turned into his war cry against an uncaring galaxy. 

Ruk spun toward Pala, took aim, then fired the whipcord from his gauntlet. Pala was there to meet the end after it crossed the pit in the catwalk.

Grabbing the end of the line, she let the device yank her up and forward. With the grace of a dancer, she arced through the air. On the catwalk, Eman reached over and yanked the lightsaber off Ruk’s belt. The Sith stumbled to his feet and ignited the blade. 

Pala landed on Eman’s back with the force of a meteor. 

The Sith was barely face down on the catwalk before Pala went to work. Years of combat training erupted into a tempest of pain for the Sith. Eman tried to roll over to bring his lightsaber into the fight, but Halron joined in, yanking the weapon away. The thin scientist stepped back, holding the device at a distance from himself by two fingers, and grimaced.

Across the pit, on the other section of catwalk, Rhia opened fire. Halron’s shield lit up as it soaked the blaster shot.

“Pala! Crystal!” Ruk said.

Pala tossed the khyber crystal to Ruk. He spared it a single glance. Such a small thing that had caused so much pain and death. But it also represented such a huge advancement in science. Especially if Eman hadn’t been lying that the khyber crystal had somehow recorded any part of the ‘hyperspace rift generation’ device design. 

The possibility of opening and maintaining a stable hyperspace rift for any ship, possibly going anywhere. A hyperspace gate. Time crawled for Ruk as the crystal glittered in his hand. 

It could change the galaxy forever.

He hurled the thing into the path of the mentat’s next shot. 

The instant the blaster bolt struck, the crystal erupted with the force of a thermal detonator. Hot energy flashed through the test chamber. No one was left standing. 

Flat on his back, Ruk watched the sputtering sensor feed in his battered armor. The Force lightning had shorted out several systems, but his tactical display was reliable as always. Pala and Halron were already slowly moving. Eman and Rhia? They registered as alive but were semi-conscious. 

Now that the device was powered down, and without the khyber crystal or the persistent hyperspace rift, the cronau radiation bands dissolved like warm fog. Ruk’s tactical display sputtered once, then registered a dozen figures rushing down the hallway toward the test chamber. At their head was Mira Vorwan, the no holds barred heir to House Vorwan. 

Ruk relaxed, easing back until the back of his helmet touched the brutalized catwalk that somehow had remained intact.

They had survived.

They had won.

Now, it was over.


	8. Chapter 8

** Zetauri system in Shindra’s Veil nebula, Tapani Sector **

** Datunda, Nelona 19th, 12731 **

Work continued on demolishing the Protian Enterprises’ Advanced Physics Research Lab. Each section, once removed, was processed through a slow decontamination process through a building-sized complex of machinery. Once done, the remains were ground into raw material for recycling. It was a cleansing and healing process for the material so life could go on. 

At the same time, Ruk, Pala and the rest of the team underwent their own healing process in the basecamp’s medical bay.

Ruk V’dora, in a navy blue jumpsuit and rebreather, stood on the same rise of craggy, blue-gray soil that overlooked the same ancient crater he seen five days ago. 

Five days. 

It was hard for him to process that number. So much had happened. But an extended stay in medbay, complete with bacta tank treatment, had that ‘lost time’ effect. Yet, the medical droid said he was clear to leave so long as he avoided any strenuous activity for the next week. After that came physical therapy. Ruk was already itching to at least exercise.

There was a crunch of dry soil to his right. He saw his partner and friend, Pala’teska walking up. Like him, she had swapped armor for more ‘down time’ clothes. For her, that meant her usual spacer’s cargo pants, shirt and a loose sand-brown flight jacket. She made the gesture for ‘hello’ with the ends of her lekku at him while she walked up. Ruk grinned, replying with a nod before he continued to watch the demolition crews. 

“Feeling ok?”

Pala walked up beside him and sighed. 

“Much. Bacta is a wonderful thing.”

Ruk chuckled.

“I just wish it didn’t leave such a bad aftertaste.”

She bumped him lightly with an elbow.

“Not everyone has to bathe in it.”

“Roger that.”

A long pause settled in, letting Ruk’s mind wander. 

“Where’s Eman and Rhia?” he asked.

“Quarantine. They were just picked up a standard hour ago by an Alliance military frigate and should be in a brig by now. Master Skywalker from the Jedi Order is aboard to make sure Eman doesn’t pull any of his Sith tricks.”

Ruk nodded. 

“Good.” 

He sighed, feeling tension bleed out of him. 

“Very good. Do Halron, Mira, or really any of the teams suspect anything?”

Pala shook her head. 

“Halron might. But he’s nosy. It doesn’t mean he’ll learn anything. No one else suspects. I’ve been saying you cobbled together some bomb-thing using a power cell crystal. A trick you learned during the Clone Wars. I had been carrying it and tossed it to you.”

He gave her a pained look.

“Are you serious?”

Pala laughed.

“Yes, and people are buying it.”

Ruk shook his head, then watched the demolition teams pull out the remains of the savaged hyperdrive prototype with extreme care. Memories of the past few days flashed back in his mind like bad holovid news footage. 

“Pala? You still have the data chip from the servers?”

She pulled a hand out of a jacket pocket and offered over the dull, matte black data chip.

Ruk studied the data chip for a long moment, letting silence settle down around them again. Wind blew over the crusty soil, sending a light dust into the air. No longer than half the length of his finger, the chip was scuffed with only two slight scratches on one corner. Evidence of the adventure it had been through.

“The only copy,” he said.

“Yes. It is, isn’t it?”

Ruk saw himself dropping it to the ground, crushing it to dust under a boot heel. Stamping out the threat that the knowledge represented. Something deep inside him whispered that was fear. 

Fear led to dark things. Some said it was the ‘mind killer’.

Fear wasn’t the way. 

He closed his fist over the chip, then handed it back.

“I just hope the Null Force techs make sense of it. You know, for when this happens again.”

Pala hesitated before dropping the data chip back in her pocket.

“ _ When? _ ”

“Yes, when. Someone’s figured it out once, someone else will figure it out again. They may mean well. They may not. But we need a way to defuse it. To protect people who don’t need to suffer because of someone being a greedy, kriffing bastard.”

Pala nodded. After a moment, she reached over to give his right bicep a light squeeze. Then she rubbed his arm.

“How do you feel now?” she asked.

He squinted at her, not sure what she was talking about.

Pala cleared her throat. 

“You know. What you said a few days ago before all this mess really got started? That you didn’t belong here?”

A thin smile grew over his face.

“Have you heard that phrase Vorkosigan sometimes says?”

“Count Vorkosigan? Aral Vorkosigan?”

Ruk shook his head, looking over to meet Pala’s confused look.

“No, his son. Miles. Miles Vorkosigan.”

Pala stared at the ground in thought. She frowned harder at him. 

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about?”

“I heard him say once, after the Galactic Civil War, that the dead can’t cry out for justice. That it’s the duty of the living to do that for them. So, I think… I’m… alright. I will be alright. I think I  _ needed _ to be here. To cry out for the dead.” Ruk looked away, first to the demolition, then up at the stars. 

He looked at Pala.

“They couldn’t and someone needed to. We needed to.”

She smiled and rubbed his arm again.

“It’s what we do.”


End file.
